Manylight stopped walking on the thirty-first dawn.
They stood in a ring of stories grown wild—plants that bore names, memories, even dialects—and said nothing.
Their eyes were closed.
And they were smiling.
"What do you hear?" Lys asked, kneeling beside them.
The child tilted their head, voice low. "Nothing."
She frowned. "Nothing?"
"It's full nothing," they said. "Not absence. Stillness. The space before a song."
And the Garden rippled.
A wave of quiet passed from them outward—through roots, dreams, glyphs, through the citadel at the edge and the table in the heart.
People paused mid-conversation. Not from fear.
From recognition.
The story wasn't pausing.
It was… awaiting.
Something.
Or someone.
—
Beneath the Garden, a new chamber opened.
Not carved.
Not dug.
It appeared.
Not with grandeur, but with permission.
